


Private Affairs

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Bi Hawkeye, Crack Treated Seriously, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Minor Canonical Character(s), Period Typical Attitudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2019-10-15 17:31:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17533133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Some time after his own visit to the 4077, George Weston winds up transferred to another unit, where he catches someone's eye.That someone might just be the most accident-prone man in the army... but his heart's in the right place, and eventually he's hoping to figure this whole thing out.





	1. Getting To Know You

**Author's Note:**

> This was one of those things that started out with 'haha what if' and ended up with me earnestly shipping these two guys from different one-off episodes, different seasons... but who shared the common goal of getting back to their own units whether or not it was the best place they could be for themselves. 
> 
> I get back to writing M*A*S*H after YEARS, and instead of writing my big ships from back in the day, here I am writing about these two patient-of-the-week guys...

    George Weston is the handsomest man Paul thinks he’s ever seen. It’s something in how he holds himself, maybe. Not that he isn’t honestly handsome, he is, with full lips and the chin of a movie star, and when he smiles, he really lights up, and then other times he looks lost in thought and almost sad, and Paul likes looking at him an awful lot, but there’s something about him that’s got nothing to do with just the way he’s put together and everything to do with the look on his face and the set of his shoulders, and how he’s about the bravest guy Paul’s met probably, and the unit was lucky to have him transferred in.

 

    The only problem is-- aside from Paul knows he shouldn’t be looking at guys like that in the first place-- he gets so _clumsy_ around him. Which is saying something, because he was born clumsy. But with most of the guys, they’re just friends… some of them are kind of good-looking, he guesses. But they’re just… it would be weird to look at the other guys in the unit like that, it’d be kind of like kissing your brother or something, he thinks. They’ve all been in it together a while and it didn’t take long to feel like this was his family, and he wants to take care of them like they’re his family, but… he was never going to look for romance in a foxhole. And nobody ever took his breath away before Weston.

 

    He can’t talk to him without tripping all over himself. At least he trips over himself enough anyway that the rest of the fellas don’t think it’s strange. With Weston’s record for heroism, and Paul’s history of… well, not that… He wouldn’t be the only guy to get a little tongue tied, getting to the front and getting a guy transferred in who’d been injured in combat so many times and who treated it like it was nothing to brag about.

 

    He wants to get to know him better, but he’s got no idea how to talk to him, and Weston’s been shy and retiring-- not unfriendly, but he never starts talking about himself, so Paul can’t hope to just settle near him and overhear something he could hope to talk about. Something they might have in common. He knows… he knows that other thing is hopeless, it always is. It always has been.

 

    The first time he fell in love-- puppy love, he guesses-- it was with a boy named Davey, who accidentally busted his face with a basketball. To be fair, Paul was supposed to catch it, only he hadn’t, and he’d said he wasn’t going to be any good at basketball, but he was so tall they all roped him into trying out in spite of his protests, and when Davey passed him the ball he managed to deflect it right up into his face, and then it bounced off his face and tripped up another guy, and anyway…

 

    Anyway, Davey had picked him up off the floor of the gym and asked him if he was okay, and he was so concerned, and his eyes were so wide, and his hair was just so, and he had a cute nose and very pink lips, and suddenly Paul had understood what it was other guys were always talking about when they talked about girls, when he never saw anything really special. And he was so nice, in a way no one had ever really been before, even if it was just because he’d felt responsible. He’d even told everyone else to knock off laughing.

 

    He never accused Paul of anything-- even though it would’ve been true-- and he never called him any names, or told him to buzz off and never talk to him again. It’s just after a while, he got real tired of Paul’s adoration. Started to look uncomfortable instead of friendly. Disgusted, once, and Paul can’t remember what he’d said or done, before the look had flashed across the other boy’s face, just that after that, he stopped talking to him. He didn’t want to ever see that look again.

 

    He can’t blame a guy for not being interested. He imagines he’d feel real uncomfortable if some girl was always following him around and he started getting the picture she wanted something he couldn’t give her, and when he thinks about it like that, as an adult, he doesn’t blame Davey for anything he felt… he doesn’t blame him for his own hurt, even, but as a kid it had been a hard blow. As an adult, he’s uncomfortably aware of just how lucky he was that Davey had been so kind. Discreet.

 

    He doesn’t think a guy can get so lucky twice. If he got it wrong, it would be a disaster this time. A blue slip and then he doesn’t know what he’d do. All the friends he’s been giving his all alongside would wonder if he’d ever thought that way about them, and life back home…

 

    But sometimes he finds himself looking over at Weston and when Weston catches him, he just smiles before turning away.

 

    In the end, it’s Weston who comes to talk to him first. He finds him struggling with a pulled muscle. They’d all been running, and Paul’s the only one he thinks couldn’t manage that without hurting himself. But Weston doubles back for him after finishing his own lap.

 

    “You need a hand?”

 

    “Well-- The guys all know this just kinda happens to me, I mean, it’s nice of you to offer but I just don’t like to hold anybody else up.” He blushes. Plenty of times early on, his friends would do the same, but he’s brushed them off enough they let him handle himself unless it’s real bad, now. It’s too embarrassing to be the guy who needs help all the time. If it was only once or twice, he wouldn’t mind it. He likes that they want to help him out, he likes knowing they care about looking out for him. In combat, it’s different! But running laps around camp, he hates always being the guy who trips or twists something or pulls something, the guy someone’s always coming back for. But Weston is new and he can’t know all that… and Paul would really like to put his arm around Weston, even just for support.

 

    “Company, then? We haven’t really gotten to know each other. Paul, right?”

 

    “Right!” He nods, and almost trips over himself all over again offering a handshake. Even though they did shake hands when they were introduced at first… He just doesn’t know what else to do. “Paul Conway-- well, Paul’s fine-- I mean, I didn’t think you’d know my name! Unless it’s because people are always warning you about how I’m a walking disaster.”

 

    “That’s not what people say about you.” He stops and takes Paul’s hand. “George.”

 

    “George. Yes, I know. I mean-- your reputation preceded you, from your old unit.” He nods again, even more emphatically.

 

    “It did?” Weston-- George-- stiffens.

 

    “Sure. I mean I guess you’re probably only about the bravest guy I know, if half of what I’ve heard about you is true.”

 

    “I don’t know.” He laughs, and just like that, the tension is gone, though there’s a touch of embarrassment still. “I don’t think I’m brave, I just don’t think about it while I’m out there. I just think about the guy next to me and how he maybe has a wife or even kids he’s got to get home to, and then I just… I do what I’ve got to do.”

 

    “Sounds brave to me. And it sounds-- I dunno. _Good_ , I guess.”

 

    “Well you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t brave.”

 

    He moves to walk closer, just in case, and Paul thinks about it, but he can manage without leaning on him, and if he gives into that temptation now, it makes it all harder, doesn’t it?

 

    “Sure I would be, I got the draft. I don’t mind it! I mean… I thought I would. I just wanted to-- well, maybe it’s kind of dumb…”

 

    George shakes his head. “What did you want to do? If you didn’t do this?”

 

    “Work in a restaurant, I guess, if it wasn’t for the war. How about you?”

 

    “Maybe I’d have signed up even without a war on. I never really had a good idea of what to do with myself. It was one thing I could do that my old man would be proud of.”

 

    “Well I bet he must be!”

 

    “Yeah. I think so. And… it’s easy, I guess. I mean-- the army tells you where to go and what to do, so… there’s no worrying about it all. Choosing what to do or anything.”

 

    “I thought I’d hate it. I thought I’d be… more scared than I am.” Paul nods-- slowly, this time. “I was at first. Some days I guess I’ve got a good enough reason to be. I mean, I’m smarter than I look.” He laughs. “I’m scared enough when we’re in it, as much as anybody else, but… But you know who your enemy is, I guess, and that makes it easier. And who your friends are. In civilian life you can never really be sure. But I mean here it’s different!”

 

    George looks down at his feet, shrugging. “I guess.”

 

    “I mean-- isn’t it? That’s why you do it. That’s why you get in there and take a hit for a guy, because you’re all on the same team and that makes you-- and that means something! Right?”

 

    “Sure.”

 

    Paul bites his lip. “I mean… right?”

 

    “No, no, that’s right, I was just--” He veers off the track, taking a seat on a boulder and motioning for Paul to join him. “I was just thinking about something that happened back in my old unit. Um, just… some of the guys fighting with each other. Well-- some of the guys kind of… beating up on a couple of the other guys.”

 

    Paul’s jaw drops. “Not just like a scuffle? Like beating up a guy? But-- I mean… why? If it was just a couple guys fighting over a girl or blowing off steam I guess that happens, but-- but ganging up on a guy in your own unit!”

 

    He makes a sound of disgust, out of words to express what he thought of the idea.

 

    “One of the guys they were ganging up on was a homosexual.” George’s voice is quiet, even. Tight. Paul feels sick.

 

    “Was he okay?” He blurts out, before he realizes he’s maybe not supposed to sympathize with him now that he knows. But now that he’s asked, he can’t take it back, he can only let more spill out, desperate. “I-- I mean-- Well, do you know what happened to him? I mean-- Because I just-- Do you?”

 

    “He got transferred out. He didn’t-- he didn’t try it on with anybody, there wasn’t anything anyone could prove, so they just shuffled him around. He lost out on a promotion I guess. Got in trouble for fighting. But he wasn’t really-- I mean, he was just trying to get away from it… he didn’t want to hit anybody. You know, they were his friends, before…”

 

    “But he’s okay? You know, just… I wouldn’t wish a dishonorable discharge on anybody, especially not for… And I-- I’d take being on the front lines over wondering if you were safe with your own friends.” Paul slumps in on himself a little, frowning. “I thought the army was supposed to be different like that. You bond with a guy and you’re supposed to not care about where he’s from or what he’s like, he’s between you and dying out there and you’re between him and dying, and… and that means something. Well, it means something to me.”

 

    “Have you ever known a guy who was like that before, though?”

 

    He squirms, face heating. “I dunno. I-- I guess, one.”

 

    “In the army?”

 

    Paul nods. “And out of the army. But yeah.”

 

    “You would… you would be okay with finding out a guy you lived with and fought with and showered with was… like that?”

 

    It would be supremely hypocritical of him not to, but he doesn’t say that. Maybe he ought to say he wouldn’t be comfortable showering with a homosexual, except he’d actually really enjoy it. He’s had several very quiet fantasies to that tune.

 

    “Well I don’t think he’d do anything to me I didn’t want him to, if we were friends.” He says, and his stomach feels sick all over again, at a sudden thought. “Were… were you in the, uh… in the fight, or did you just see it, or--?”

 

    He hates that he couldn’t help asking. He’s not sure what he’d even say next if the answer is yes, if he’d been part of that. He doesn’t sound proud of it or anything at least, but maybe he’d also gotten a transfer for ‘fighting’, or… Paul doesn’t know. Sure, it would be a fool’s game to hope George wouldn’t think like that, but the idea of his joining in… that’s a heartache he never thought to guard himself against.

 

    “I was just drinking at the wrong time, in the wrong place.”

 

    “What-- what was he like?”

 

    George had been staring at the dirt. At that question, his head whips around, he regards Paul a long moment with eyes wide.

 

    “I don’t really know how to describe him.” He says at last, with a sad little laugh. “I guess just… as a good friend to people. A pretty okay soldier. Not the kinds of things people say about-- about guys like that. Just normal, really. Why, what was the guy you knew like?”

 

    “A little like the kinds of things people say, about guys like that.” Paul admits. “He still has kind of a lisp sometimes and he’s not very good at any sports or anything. And he wanted to take home ec back when he was in high school.”

 

    “The make-your-own-curtains type?”

 

    “Just cooking.” He shakes his head. “It’s all I-- think he’s ever really been good at.”

 

    For a long moment, he worries George might poke at the slip, but he doesn’t. He looks at him, like he’s thinking, but his expression never changes to one of discomfort or disgust.

 

    “Well. He sounds pretty okay, too.”

 

    “Yeah. I mean, I figure he is.”

 

    George gets to his feet, in no particular hurry. “You all right from here?”

 

    “Oh. Yeah. I’m always all right.”

 

    “That sounds about right. I mean-- that’s what everybody _does_ say about you.”

 

    “They do?”

 

    “Yeah.” He offers Paul a hand up. “You know. Not to be hard on you if you seem klutzy because you’re a real good guy and you don’t complain and you always come through.”

 

    “When’d they tell you all of that stuff?” He grins, face hot. He hadn’t actually thought anyone would bother to say anything about him. He’s not sure how good he is at always coming through, either, but he always tries, at least.

 

    “When I asked.” George says, and he breaks into a smile in return. “I’ll see you around.”

 

    “Sure!”

 

    Asked… He doesn’t say anything about why he’d asked about Paul. Maybe he’d asked around about everyone some, to get a feel for his new unit. That made sense.

 

    They do see each other around. No real escaping it. Well, not that Paul would want to escape it, he likes seeing him. Exchanging a few words here and there. Seeing him come out of his shell, just a little bit. It must be hard making friends in a new unit, where everyone else already knows each other, and when you must be missing your own old buddies… so it’s not so strange to want to help him out a little, to make an extra effort to get him talking with the guys, make him laugh.

 

    He has a great laugh.

 

    It’s not like Paul didn’t know he was in trouble.

 

    Really, after that day, they see a lot of each other. Paul feels more comfortable seeking George out, knowing he’s a pretty nice guy who doesn’t really want to be made a big deal of. George seems comfortable seeking Paul out, too, not that Paul can make out why he’d want to. But they take to sitting together-- at lectures and filmstrips and uninspiring meals no one much likes choking down, and sometimes just when everything’s all hurry-up-and-wait and they’ve got nothing else to do.

 

    “Do you have a sweetheart back home?” George asks, during one of those long hurry-up-and-waits. He’s sprawled out on a blanket spread on the ground, tossing and catching a baseball. There had been a group of them, one of the guys had left the ball behind when the others settled on a different game, and George had opted to sit out with Paul.

 

    Paul is used to being a spectator, for any kind of sporty thing. He’s not so used to having company.

 

    He shakes his head, blushing faintly at the question. “No. Never did. Guess I’m not-- not cut out for it.”

 

    “Me either.” George bites his lip, dropping the baseball.

 

    “Really?”

 

    “Really. It’s not _that_ surprising, is it?”

 

    “Oh. I don’t know. You’re just-- handsome.”

 

    The grin that busts out all over George’s face is _incandescent_. Paul’s heart starts going in eleven-four time. It dims, just for a moment, and he looks around, before relaxing back into it.

 

    “You’re pretty cute yourself.” He says, his voice so soft Paul has to lean in, and then, then he’s _leaned in_ and they’re so close…

 

    “If you say so.” He laughs nervously. “Not like-- not like the kind of cute girls line up around the block for, or anything, not like-- I mean…”

 

    “I don’t really want girls lined up around the block.” George whispers.

 

    Paul swallows, searching out his eyes for… _something_.

 

    “Me either.” He says.

 

    “Okay.” George nods, and he rolls onto his back.

 

    “Okay.” Paul shifts to lie down next to him, picking up the discarded baseball to roll between his hands. His heart is still pounding. They turn to look at each other, breaking into matching grins again before breaking eye contact again. “So, uh… what do you think that cloud looks like?”

 

    Next to him, the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

 

    Nothing more comes of the talk, not for a while. Paul’s not sure what he’s supposed to say next. It feels like they’ve established _something_ , but he can’t be sure _what_. He’s on the shores of a brand new world, but he’s got no idea how to get inland to what he _wants_.

 

    In the end, it’s not so much about what he says. In fact, all he says is ‘OOPS’, as he’s tripping over himself, and then he’s landing half on top of George.

 

    The pain that lances through his leg has every muscle clenching in protest of the chance of his being moved, has him breaking out in a sweat within seconds. It’s a very unwelcome distraction from the fact that he’s in George’s arms, which is what he’s been wanting since they met… It’s hard to breathe normally, he’d never realized how much more effort everything takes when you’re in blinding pain.

 

    “Are you okay?” George positions him as comfortably as it’s possible to do, in a foxhole, positions both of them so that Paul is leaning back against his chest.

 

    “Are-- are you?” He asks, gritting his teeth.

 

    “Course I am.” He strokes Paul’s forehead, holds onto him. “I just fumbled catching you a little, that’s all, that’s all… I’ve got you. Is it bad?”

 

    “Can’t tell… hurts.”

 

    “I’ve got you…”

 

    George’s nose is pressed right against his temple, he can feel his breath, but it’s distant. Everything’s distant except for the pain, worse than anything he’s done to himself before. All things considered, he’d rather be held than not be held, but he can’t really enjoy it… he might as well be held be held by any of his buddies for all that he’s getting out of it. His vision is swimming and his head is pounding…

 

    “Hey, hey, hang on.” George continues, his hand over Paul’s still-pounding heart. The adrenaline hasn’t worn off, he’s not sure when it will.

 

    “Does it look bad?”

 

    “I-- I don’t know. You’re not bleeding out, that’s good enough for me.”

 

    And with that, George kisses the side of his head, and that cuts through the pain just a little bit. That would be different, with anybody else. Wouldn’t mean what maybe it does.

 

    With some effort, he gets hold of George’s hand, squeezing. Squeezing isn’t difficult, actually-- once he’s got his hand on George’s, squeezing is all he can do. He wants to be able to return the gesture, but he can’t. Eventually… but not like this, his face twisted into a grimace and his breaths coming hard and labored.

 

    George talks to him, the entire time they’re waiting out the firefight, for all he takes in… it doesn’t matter, it matters that he’s not lying there alone. It matters that there’s a hand in his.

 

    When it’s all over, George sees him bundled into an ambulance, farewell touches to his shoulder and brow. He’d had plenty of time to linger with him, his injury was one of the least of them, when the smoke cleared. A couple guys had to be helicoptered out to the nearest MASH unit, a handful more driven ahead of him.

 

    They don’t quite get the goodbye he’d like, but they get the one they’re allowed, anyway.

 

    “Hurry back?” George waves, before the ambulance doors close, and Paul doesn’t get to give an answer.

 

    But he will. He’ll be back as soon as they’ll clear him.


	2. We Kiss In A Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul makes it back to the unit to explore that nebulous promise of something.

    He doesn’t half remember the stuff George had said about his own time there. His last unit had also been on the front, somewhere down the way, about the same distance from the 4077, he’d talked about when he’d been there, but Paul hadn’t really taken it in at the time. Everyone he deals with is real nice, anyway. A little screwy, but he figures you gotta be sometimes. And once he’s back on his feet, they let him cook. The first time is just because they’re a little short-handed, but after that…

 

    After that, it’s great. It’s wonderful. The idea of not going back to his own unit is not-- he’d promised he would, George is there, the memory of lips pressed fervently to his hair and the idea of something more waiting for him, and even without George, those are his friends! He wouldn’t want to leave any one of them. He doesn’t want some cushy post where he doesn’t know anybody, where he won’t know how his friends are all doing… where he won’t hear Bill and Frankie arguing about girls and baseball, where he won’t have Ted tuck up against him when it’s cold, joking about using him to block the wind, and… and everyone laughing at the two of them next to each other because Ted’s the shortest guy in the unit and Paul’s the tallest, and they play it up sometimes when the rest of the fellas need something dumb to laugh at. And all the time he spends with everybody, he’d miss it too much. Maybe if his unit was like George’s old unit, he wouldn’t care about being transferred, but these guys are his family. He’d say so to as many generals as he had to, to get back to them. It’s not even nerve-wracking, the way he always imagined talking to a general would be.

 

    It’s just a shame some of the guys won’t wind up coming back with him, the guys who’ve got to go onto Tokyo General. Before they send him back to the front, he gets in his goodbyes with the guys who are getting transferred. He tears up a little, even, and they tease him for being mushy, and he pretends not to notice if anyone else’s eyes are shining a little too much. He doesn’t mind being called mushy, he is. He’s sentimental, or he guesses he’d take that cushy post somewhere else over going back to the front. But they don’t tease him like it’s a bad thing, they squeeze his hands and muss up his hair and tell him what messages to pass on, and he promises he will, and… and it’s sad, but he guesses it happens sometimes and he has to get used to it, because at least they’re still alive anyway.

 

    When he finally does get back, George is the first to reach him, to throw his arms around him with a grin and a laugh, before everybody else is piling up on him. While he’s being slapped on the back and ruffled and mussed and patted and hugged to within an inch of his life, no one much notices George kissing his cheek. Paul notices, the rest of the world seems to freeze or go all muted when Paul notices, but nobody else notices.

 

    The thing is, Paul gets hurt an awful lot, and it’s almost always his own fault, but this is the first time he’s ever had it bad enough that he’d have to go to the nearest MASH unit and they’d have to wonder if he’d be transferred out or not. He’s been on the other side of it, eager to get a hand on a returning friend just to prove he was all in one piece and back with them all, but he’s never been in the middle of it, with the press of everyone wanting to get in and see him forcing George in tighter against him, and he’s not complaining about that, exactly, he’s just overwhelmed, and he’d like to kiss him back, and he can’t.

 

    Once someone says ‘okay fellas, give him some air’ and everyone backs off a little, the way it always goes, he passes on messages from the guys moving onto Tokyo, and gives the good news about his reassignment, and then it’s just back to life as usual, except now the usual is that he gets to cook.

 

    George finds him after dinner-- after all the guys have eaten, when he’s got his leg up in the mess and his own dinner in front of him.

 

    “You’re a really good cook. That’s why you wanted to get a restaurant job, huh?”

 

    “Gee, thanks. Self taught! Um, yeah. Well… I figure… I figure going to a fancy school for it is real expensive, when you factor in having to travel and get a new place to live, especially if you’re going to France or something. I mean it sure would be nice to go off to someplace, like someplace real famous for it, and study a bunch of things, and be… I dunno, be able to work in a really _nice_ restaurant. And then people wouldn’t think it was a dumb thing to want to do with the rest of my life. But I don’t really care if I work in some kinda expensive French restaurant or if I work the grill at Ruby’s making twenty cent burgers. I just want to cook. Well… I guess I’d rather work someplace where I could be creative with it a little, but I don’t mind just making a cheeseburger! As long as people like it.”

 

    “If you can make the food they give us out here as good as dinner was tonight, I’m not sure there’s anything they can even teach you in France.”

 

    “They could teach me something. Pastry, maybe. But-- shucks, thanks.”

 

    “I’m glad you got your reassignment… and I’m glad you’re still here. I was worried I wouldn’t really know how to get a message to you if you didn’t come back.”

 

    “You’d’ve wanted to get a message to me? Oh-- well if they had sent me anywhere else, I would’ve written! But-- you’d’ve wanted to?” Paul asks, forgetting his own dinner entirely under the weight of George’s cautious smile.

 

    “I couldn’t have put half what I’d want to tell you in a letter.” He shrugs. His hand rests on Paul’s arm. The guys touch all the time being crowded in together and used to each other, and some guys more than others, and some guys will grab your arm to make a point talking, but this doesn’t feel like that at all.

 

    “Neither could I.”

 

    “I don’t know if the army reads every letter between one unit and another the way they read letters home, but I figure they scan a few at least. With my luck, they’d read mine.”

 

    “Oh. I just… I’m not much good at writing. I hadn’t thought they’d read letters to other guys out on the front. But I guess they must. They still gotta know we’re not putting anything in writing that someone could intercept…” Paul frowns down at his tray a moment, before his focus snaps back up to George. “You-- you’d want to write me things the army wouldn’t approve of?”

 

    He grabs George’s hand before it can withdraw from his arm, squeezing gently. After a moment of uncertainty, he sees him relax back into a smile, sees the tiny nod.

 

    “Can we talk later? Someplace private?”

 

    “Of course. Um… here-- back in the kitchen?”

 

    “Finish eating first. But yeah. I can meet you there. In ten?”

 

    “I’ll be there.” He promises, watching George go, grinning at every look back over the shoulder, until he’s out talking with some of the guys, going about life as usual.

 

    They meet out back of the kitchen, but they don’t talk there, they talk in the supply tent with all the cans of meat and vegetables and the boxes of powdered eggs and milk, where no one ever bothers going-- and if someone caught him there, he could just say he was trying to get familiar with where everything was, and George was just keeping him company telling him a story about something he’d missed while he was away. It’s just the two of them and a lantern, instead of having the light on, and George looks something else, with the light all soft and warm and shadowy, and his eyes shining by it.

 

    “I wanted to tell you… I have to tell you.” George says, so quiet Paul has to lean in close. “It was me. I mean, after everything we’ve said, you probably figured, but… The reason I left my old unit, it was because I-- I slipped up. Had too much to drink and I said the name of my first kiss, and then… I don’t remember much. A couple questions I must have answered honestly, and then…”

 

    Paul’s hand comes up to just barely touch his cheek. He’d come to hope maybe George had meant he knew one other guy who was one, that he’d wanted a transfer out after what happened to the other fella. That it hadn’t been him somehow, even when it seemed it must have been. That no one could look at a guy as swell as him and hate him so much, when it’s not like he could help it any more than Paul can… and if they could help it, wouldn’t they?

 

    Maybe not, now. He used to think if there was some kind of magic switch he could flip and make himself normal, he’d do it like that, because all he’d ever been in love was lonely and disappointed and scared, but he wouldn’t flip a switch that would make him look at George and only see another guy and not get all fluttery over making him smile. He wouldn’t flip a switch that would take away all the things he sees in the way the morning sun lights his eyes or the way he moves or the shape of his lips. Even if George wasn’t the same as him and they weren’t standing in a dimly-lit supply tent leaned in real close to each other, he wouldn’t turn off all the thoughts and feelings he has over him, just so he could maybe think and feel things about girls instead.

 

    “I guess I should say I meant me, too, huh?” He whispers.

 

    “I figured. But I’m glad you’re telling me.”

 

    “I like you an awful lot, George.”

 

    The answering smile he gets has his heart soaring and his stomach twisting, and then George turns just a little, pushes into Paul’s hand so that his lips press right up against the heel. He reaches up, wrapping a hand around Paul’s forearm, keeping him there. Not that he needs to do much to keep him.

 

    “Good. I like you an awful lot.” He sighs. Warm, and soft, his breath caresses the inside of Paul’s wrist like the gentlest little touch, and his eyes flutter closed for just half a second, and he _likes_ him!

 

    “And I-- I’d really like to kiss you. I don’t know if that’s too forward or anything… I mean, we’ve spent a lot of time together, but you can’t really take a guy out… I don’t know how you figure on when it’s okay to ask if you can kiss a guy.”

 

    “Now’s good.”

 

    “Oh.” Paul says, only he doesn’t, exactly, because his voice won’t come. George isn’t a small guy or anything-- he’s real tall, even, next to a lot of people. Six foot, maybe, or close to it, but Paul still has to lean down to kiss him, and it feels nice. He doesn’t have to bend all the way down like he guesses he’d have to with just about any girl, just a nice little bit, and it feels like he thinks it’s supposed to feel.

 

    He can’t imagine there’s something more right than this. To lean down that little tiny bit and feel George lean up, and George’s other hand sweeps through his hair and guides him to just the right angle, and his other hand slides up George’s back to pull him close, even though they’re already close… This has to be what any normal guy feels when he kisses a girl and holds her close. George’s lips are so nice, and he’s so sweet about it, kissing back and being real gentle, and letting Paul kind of take the lead. It’s not like he’d have been upset about George taking charge of things, on account of he’s at least kissed a guy before, but Paul had started it, so it’s kind of nice to be able to be behind the wheel of the thing, to not feel like he’s clumsy at it.

 

    He _doesn’t_ feel clumsy. He thinks this is about the only other thing apart from cooking he’s ever not felt clumsy about, but things feel so right with him, and he’s the perfect height, and he’s real encouraging, the way he holds on and plays with Paul’s hair and sighs a little. It’s not necking, really, just a bunch of soft kissing, of getting the hang of each other just like this. It’s just gentle, and sweet. And when they pull apart, Paul’s thumb strokes along George’s cheek, and George sighs again, and licks his lips, and even pulls them into his mouth a moment like he’s tasting the kiss, like it’s something left behind that he could hold onto, and watching his lower lip slide back out past his teeth, looking even fuller and rosier than it did before, Paul just wants to kiss him again.

 

    Harder.

 

    “Wow.” He says.

 

    “Yeah.” George smiles.

 

    “You know what? I’m real glad right now I’m-- you know. This way. I mean I guess I’d feel different if I wasn’t this way, but I don’t think it’d be as right as this. And I-- and I won’t let anyone else hurt you for it again, not when I’m around. I won’t ever let anybody lay a hand on you or anything!”

 

    “It’s okay.” He presses closer, with one arm around Paul’s waist and one hand on his chest. He lays his head against Paul’s shoulder, and that, too, feels right. “I don’t drink much now, and I’m a lot more careful how I talk. No one’s going to.”

 

    “Well-- well if anyone from your old unit showed up, I wouldn’t let ‘em.”

 

    George shifts a little, until his lips are on Paul’s neck, sending a pleasant little jolt through him. “Sure… I’ll be safe with you. You’re big, and strong…”

 

    The sound that escapes Paul at that moment might be best described as a nervous giggle. “I don’t know… tall, anyway.”

 

    “You feel strong enough to me.” He says, and the hand on Paul’s chest moves in firm strokes. “Enough to hold me tight, keep me safe. And I’ll do the same for you. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you, either.”

 

    “I believe you.” Paul nods, wrapping both arms around George and holding him tight. He sighs, pressing his face into George’s hair. “I wish I could talk about you, though. Everyone talks about sweethearts and wives and even just girls they’ve seen, and I can never… I can’t say all the things I like about you.”

 

    “You can tell me what you like about me.” George’s lips move against his neck, and he can’t argue with that.

 

    “I like a lot about you. You know-- you know, the first time I saw you, standing there in your uniform? All straight-backed and-- and-- I mean, you sure can wear a uniform, but it wasn’t just that. You had this look on your face, too, and… and I went a little weak in the knees for you, right then and there.”

 

    “You did?”

 

    “Yeah. You… you looked really down, at first, and I figured I’d be down, too, if I got transferred to a new unit where I didn’t know anybody. But then something made you smile-- and I don’t know if you were just thinking something, or if someone was saying something to you, I just saw you smile from across the way, and I don’t know. I thought you were real handsome.”

 

    “The first time I saw you… you tripped on a rock.”

   

    “Oh. I didn’t make a real great first impression, did I?”

 

    “No-- you did. I mean, you hopped back up and laughed it off and you took… three steps, then you went back, picked up the rock, and moved it out of the path. And then you looked over, and you saw me, and you waved…”

 

    “Oh, I remember that.”

 

    “And I saw how blue your eyes are, for the very first time.”

   

    “Oh.” Paul smiles. “I liked… how you always just seemed like a really nice guy. Even coming in and being new and being kind of shy, you know, you were always real encouraging with everybody during drills and stuff. Like, a real team player. And that’s not easy when everyone else has been a team a while and you haven’t been.”

 

    “You, too. Seeming nice, I mean. Like… how the first time I tried telling you that story, you just cared about how a guy was doing after getting beat up on… and you didn’t think about whether I’d think it was suspicious, when you asked.”

 

    “I thought a little about that, a little late.” He admits. “But… I guess… I mean, I just-- I wouldn’t think it was right to beat on any guy who was part of your own unit.”

 

    “You’re nice. And you’re tall.” George sighs against his throat, lips traveling down as far as Paul’s fatigues allow. “I kind of like looking up at a guy.”

 

    “Boy, your options aren’t too open, are they?”

 

    He laughs. “They wouldn’t be too open even if I didn’t. What do you like?”

 

    “I just like a real nice guy, I guess. Bravery doesn’t hurt. And you’re easy to talk to. Well-- except I get a little nervous about it, sometimes, with-- with how you are real nice and brave and awful handsome.”

 

    “You, too. I feel like I could probably tell you anything.”

 

    “I think you probably could.” Paul nods, running his fingers through George’s hair, feeling him sigh again.

 

    “I want to tell people… Not-- not until the war’s over. When I figure out what I’ll do with my life after, when I have someplace to go that isn’t military service, because I know… I know how bad it’ll be. But they’re going to have to do it to a guy with the most exemplary record possible.” He wraps his arms around Paul, _tight_ , takes a deep breath. “I want to take every commendation and every medal and line them all up and tell people exactly who I was when I earned it all. Is that crazy?”

 

    “Yeah.” Paul squeezes onto him right back. “But if that’s what you wanna do, then I’m behind you on it. You just-- you just stick with me, so I can watch your back still.”

 

    “Okay.” George pulls back, so that he can lean up for another kiss. “Paul… if-- no, nevermind. Just… just kiss me, we’ll worry about tomorrow when it gets here.”

 

    Just kissing George sounds like an excellent idea, exactly the kind of suggestion he could really do something with. He bends him back just a little against the shelving unit they’re closest to, really taking advantage of the four inches or so of height he does have on him, he kisses him until they’re breathless, until he needs to stop while he can, and when George shifts in his arms, their hips come together and he weighs out the merits of maybe _not_ stopping.

 

    “Oh…” George smiles up at him. “Can I help you with that?”

 

    “Can…?” He swallows. “Have-- have you, before? With a guy?”

 

    He nods, a little shy, his hand at Paul’s hip. “A little. Enough to know what I’m doing, if you want.”

 

    “Maybe-- maybe next time? I mean… I just-- I’d kind of like something a little more romantic than up against the Spam, for a first time. And boy, you’ve got no idea how hard it is to say no right now.” He shakes his head emphatically.

 

    “I’ve got a little idea.” George laughs and leans up to kiss his cheek. “We’ll figure something out. A little more romantic than up against the Spam-- promise. Who are you bunked in with?”

 

    “Williams and Clark-- and Williams’ll be on sentry duty all day when I’ve got nothing to do between mealtimes, and Clark’s on duty the same shift. So if you can come by any time between meals, well…”

 

    George nods, biting his lip. “I’ll find the time.”

 

    “Great!” Paul says, a little too brightly, like they’re just talking about getting together for drinks or something normal, and not about arranging what’s sure to be the most beautiful experience of his life so far but also one that could get him a blue slip before he could say word one, if someone did come in.

 

    “Great.” George smiles. He takes a moment, once he’s grabbed the lantern, to let his eyes rake over Paul, and then he checks to see if the coast is clear, and Paul tries to think about something less appealing than the kissing and the promise of more than that.


	3. Something Wonderful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A first time-- and a little more romance than a quickie up against the cans of Spam.

    He’s tidied his corner of the little tent about as much as a tent can be tidied, by the time George slips in to meet him, and Paul feels the strangest mix of relief and nervousness. They break out into matching grins just being alone together, and it’s George who reaches out first, who takes Paul’s hand, and it’s such a simple thing but it has his stomach churning already.

 

    “So this is your place, huh?”

 

    “Not much, but it’s home.” He nods. Grins a little harder when George laughs at that.

 

    “Now that I’ve had the grand tour…”

 

    They sit, together, slide neatly into each other’s arms, and George kisses him, skips right past the shy and slow stage this time and gets straight to showing him what a kiss can be. A kiss, Paul thinks, can be _everything_ , provided the right boy is kissing you. This one is, at least, and he can’t help himself if he imagines a future full of a lot more kissing like this.

 

    After the war… would they stay together? Settle down somewhere into civilian life? Maybe it’s a little early to ask those questions, only… only if George wants to come out about everything, about himself, when he’s done with his service, well… won’t he need somebody? Somebody who can take care of him, or just walk next to him so no one messes with him too much? If it was the two of them, they’re not small guys and both of them would be ex-military, and wouldn’t it just make sense to stick together? Get a little house and be careful about who they keep company with, and just… He ought to be there. Why shouldn’t what they have be the same as what anybody else has? Lots of fellas have settled down fast with that one special gal, why shouldn’t he do the same with one special guy? In the few weeks they’ve known each other, they get along real well and he thinks they want a lot of the same things out of life. If you’re going to go to bed with somebody you ought to be prepared to do the right thing by them, and maybe he can’t make an honest man out of George or anything like that, but he thinks if they’re going to do this, he ought to at least think about the future as something possible. Not just like some wartime fling or something. He doesn’t have the experience to say for sure if he’s cut out for flings or not, but he doesn’t think he is, and he likes just being able to picture a future with someone, when he’s never been able to picture it before.

 

    George kisses him, and he can picture a future with someone.

 

    “Anyone ever tell you you’re real cute before?” George pants against his neck when the kiss breaks, and Paul shivers.

 

    “No.”

 

    “Real, real cute.” He smiles, kisses him there, a line from his collar up to his jaw and back, hot and wet.

 

    “Oh-- gosh--”

 

    “Sensitive?”

 

    “Seems like it.” He says, voice going high, and George laughs softly against him, before letting his teeth scrape the hinge of Paul’s jaw.

 

    “The things I’d do for you if I could…”

 

    “Doing a real good job right now.”

 

    Another soft laugh, a softer kiss. He slides Paul’s fatigue jacket off one shoulder, and Paul gets the message pretty quick, shrugs out of it as George does the same.

 

    “I don’t want to leave any marks that would get you in trouble…”

 

    “What, like a hickey?”

 

    “Yeah.” He nods, their eyes meeting.

 

    “You probably could, I’m always showing up with bruises someplace. Got a shiner jogging straight into a tree once. Fell down a hill and bruised my tailbone and I couldn’t sit down for two weeks and I had to beg ‘em not to send me away for something so embarrassing, camp medic said if it was any worse’n it was he’d have had to send me to Tokyo and I’d’ve gotten reassigned, and I didn’t think it was so bad, only he said it wasn’t something they could fix in a mobile unit, ‘cause you just have to rest it.”

 

    “Paul…” George runs a hand through his hair.

 

    “I know…” He blushes. “I’m a disaster.”

 

    “You poor lamb.” He draws him in, kisses him again, pets at him a little bit, but it’s not heated or frantic. “You should have someone taking care of you.”

 

    “Well I’m not sure it’d help, but you’re welcome to try.”

 

    “You should at least have someone to kiss it better.”

 

    Paul laughs, nervous. “You might be spending a lot of time kissing me.”

 

    “In a lot of places, yeah.”

 

    “What about you?” He catches George’s wrist, bringing his arm up, tracing fingertips along a scar. “Seems like you might need me to do that for you, too, sometimes.”

 

    “Knife. My first time getting wounded in combat.”

 

    “Does it ever bother you?”

 

    He shakes his head. “No, it’s not really like anything now. Does it look bad?”

 

    “No.” Paul kisses his wrist, shifts the hold he has on him and lets his lips trace a path down the scar towards the elbow. “Were you scared?”

 

    “Terrified. I’m not exactly sure how I got through that one… Gets easier, though.” George takes Paul’s hands, guiding them to the hem of his tee shirt.

 

    Paul can take a hint. He starts peeling it off, only to stop when he hits the next scar, a thick and puckered jag along George’s ribcage.

 

    “What was this one?”

 

    “Bullet grazed me, I guess. Didn’t heal very pretty, but… I guess I’m used to it now. It doesn’t hurt.”

 

    Paul covers it with his hand, feels out the shape of it, tracing over with his fingertips. He presses a kiss to his thumb before brushing it over the scar, and then he gets the shirt the rest of the way off.

 

    George twists around to show him the scarring across the back of his shoulders.

 

    “Shrapnel.” He says, and gasps softly when Paul’s lips brush over the worst of it.

 

    “Sorry-- did this one--?”

 

    “No. Well… sometimes. Itches pretty bad when it’s hot out and aches a little, different from the other scars. But it’s not bad. It’s-- it’s nice, that’s all.” He says. “Do it again?”

 

    Paul rests his hands at George’s waist, and kisses each one of the little raised spots, different sizes. Not too densely scattered, but it must have hurt like hell… and he must have been lying on his front the whole time he was recovering.

 

    “I’ll show you the other one later.”

 

    “Mm?” Paul looks him over, but there’s really nowhere else for it to be, except below the waist. “Oh-- later, yeah.”

 

    “I want to get your shirt off, first.”

 

    “Yeah, yeah. Yes!” He nods, as George turns back around. He lets George get him stripped the rest of the way to the waist, and he doesn’t feel like he’s so much to look at, he’s not built half as nice as George is, but George just leans in and touches him, and presses a kiss right over his heart, nuzzles into the center of his chest with a sigh.

 

    “You feel nice…” George looks up at him, stroking Paul’s chest.

 

    “You feel nice.” He grins, tracing looping circles over one strong shoulder. And he knows maybe they should get on with it, maybe they should hurry, but… this is the one time when no one will be coming around, when no one needs either of them. Outside of maybe lucking into getting a little R&R at the same time, it could be the one chance they’ll have to take their time, there’s no guarantee his tentmates will always be pulling shifts on duty at the same time he’s free…

 

    “How’d you like to feel even better?”

 

    Paul laughs, half nervous and half delighted. They drag each other into another kiss, his hand splayed across George’s back, feeling out all the little shrapnel scars, George’s combat history in braille. The hand still trapped between them against his chest moves over, two fingers teasing at a nipple, and that’s new, that’s brand new. He’s never done it for himself and he’s not sure it would be the same if he did, and it’s not like it’s all-consuming and electric, but he thinks it’s nice, he makes a very approving noise into the kiss he’s currently pouring all his focus into.

 

    They can’t take so much time every time… he’s aware of the risk, and he doesn’t like the thought of what could happen to them if they were caught, but he’d said he wanted more romance than a quickie up against the Spam, and this… this feels right. For a first time, this feels right. And if they were caught for it…

 

    He thinks he’d shoulder the blame-- if he could, at least. It would be his fault for asking for so much, he’d say he’d grabbed him, that… that they were shirtless for some little sparring exercise or other, and then he’d just been overcome and grabbed him, and George was just too surprised to push him off fast enough.

 

    Of course, that only works if they’re caught in the right position, and he knows George isn’t afraid of people knowing, but he’s got a timeline in mind for it, and Paul thinks he’d be okay. His record doesn’t matter to him the same way, and he thinks even with a blue slip he could get work doing what he does. The army isn’t his life. He’d miss his friends and he’d worry about everyone if he wasn’t there to know how they were all doing, he’d be sorry not to be with them and taking care of him the one way he can, but he’d be okay, he’d make it.

 

    He tries not to think about the fact that George probably wouldn’t let him take the fall. He tries not to think there might be a fall to take.

 

    George undoes his belt and suddenly it’s a lot easier not to worry about the future.

 

    They don’t bother taking their boots off, the one concession they make to time and the potential need to end the encounter in a hurry. They shove their pants and shorts down out of the way and that’s that. There’s a mostly-neat scar on George’s thigh, a bullet that went in clean and healed up nicely after the doctors took it out again. He pays a little less attention this time, what with the fact that he’s also seeing his cock for the first time, semi-hard.

 

    “I was lucky with that one.” He smiles wryly. “It missed the artery or I would’ve bled out before they got me taken care of. Didn’t hit bone.”

 

    “Was it close?”

 

    “Inch or so to the side and I guess I wouldn’t be here today.” He shrugs. “Six inches up and I might not be _here_ today…”

 

    Paul shudders and wraps a hand around his hip, squeezing. “I’m glad you are here. Um, and… all of that.”

 

    “So am I. Paul…” George wraps a hand around something, too, and Paul wouldn’t worry about being caught if Truman himself barged into the tent to ask what the hell they thought they were doing together with their pants around their ankles. “Am I really your first?”

 

    “Never even kissed anybody before.” He admits. “I mean, I never wanted to, with girls, and… you know. Never had the guts to ask a guy before.”

 

    “My first kiss was ‘practice’. For him, anyway. I guess for me it was the real thing. I’ve been ‘practice’ for a few guys… or just, you know… maybe there are guys who haven’t seen a girl in so long they make an exception. You don’t mind, do you?”

 

    “No.” Paul shakes his head, eyes wide. Though, with George’s hand where it is, there’s a very short list of things he’d say he minded. Like ‘stopping’.

 

    “It’s just-- it’s not hard to find a guy who doesn’t mind maybe trading favors with the lights out and never talking about it, but it-- it’s different, finding a guy who… A guy who wants to talk to you, and look at you, and-- a guy who wants something romantic.”

 

    “I want something romantic.” He promises, his own hand finally finding its way to George’s cock. Now he knows what the angle’s supposed to be, for getting another guy. It feels a little awkward at first, both familiar and not. They aren’t very different, in terms of size and everything. Visually he’d have guessed they were the same size, but in his hand, George feels just a little thicker, when he swells the rest of the way. “I mean, I think it’s good one of us knows what he’s doing-- I mean, I know! I know a few things you can do with a guy, I just haven’t done ‘em yet.”

 

    “Yeah, where’d you learn?”

 

    His face heats. “Heard some guys saying stuff-- I mean, they were saying it to be mean, when it was about two guys, but they painted a real picture.”

 

    They’d made it sound so dirty, the sneer around the way they’d said ‘cock-sucker’, they’d made it sound so he can’t even repeat the words, but it had finally given him something to _imagine_ , and he’d gotten a lot of mileage out of imagining it. Imagined doing it as much as he imagined having it done.

 

    George moves to kneel in front of him, almost as if he could read his mind-- the only reason he doesn’t protest having his own hand moved away from the swelling organ that had just been filling it. And Paul knows there are other things, too, but he’s glad George is interested in this one. He looks up from between Paul’s knees with the sweetest smile.

 

    “You look good from this angle.”

 

    “Flatterer.”

 

    “Really.” George says, and then he doesn’t say anything else.

 

    He’s so sweet, he really is, and he’s nothing like anything else Paul has ever felt, nothing like his own hand-- even before he got his mouth in on things, it was a lot better than doing for himself, having George’s hand on him, but now…

 

    He has a hand in George’s hair, the other on his shoulder, still feeling over the scarring, and George’s head is bobbing, he can feel the occasional warm gust of breath from his nose, can feel when he swallows at the gathering spit-- though even more drips down, escapes the seal of his lips as he pulls off.

 

    George laps at the saliva and the precome, and Paul tightens the grip he has in his hair, before he can get back to it, getting a questioning look.

 

    “Do you-- do you like doing it?” He asks, breathless, grip slacking once he has George’s attention.

 

    “Yeah.” George smiles up at him, one hand sliding up along his inner thigh. “I do.”

 

    Paul just nods, not sure what exactly he can say to that, what he really needed to know when he’d asked. Well, of course he’d wanted to know if it was enjoyable-- he’s always imagined it would be, but he doesn’t really know anything… and he’s never had anyone he could ask before.

 

    George goes back to doing it-- and enjoying it-- and Paul goes back to just holding on-- and enjoying it. Very much enjoying it, George is so _nice_ , his mouth is so _talented_.

 

    He’s _mortified_ when George does something with his hands and his tongue all at once, and he comes without warning. It feels so impolite not… he doesn’t know, not saying something, or stopping him, or something. He’s not sure what the etiquette is, but it seems like there ought to be some. George isn’t at all thrown by it, though, and there’s a deep fascination that twists in the pit of his stomach as George _swallows_ it. He’d expected mess, he’d expected him to spit it out, maybe, but…

 

    He’d _swallowed_ it. Warmth floods him. Is he supposed to do that? Will he be able to? He never has before and he knows what the consistency he’s expecting is, and how fast it comes out, and thanks to a single solo experiment which barely involved the tip of his tongue and his hand, what the taste is like, and it’s not really something he’d ever _elect_ to swallow, but then he always imagined it would make a difference, for it to be another guy’s. His mind is racing circles around the thought.

 

    George looks up at him with naked desire burning in his eyes, breathless, wordless. Paul just nods, and George rises to sit beside him again, to touch his chest gently, almost tentative even now.

 

    There’s something about being wanted so badly, and yet touched so shyly now, after the fact, that makes Paul feel a lot bolder than he thought he’d be. He wraps a hand around the back of George’s neck and he pulls him in for what he hopes is one hell of a kiss.

 

    On his end, anyway, it sure stands up to the practice they’ve been getting.

 

    “Paul…” George sighs, arms thrown around him once their lips part. “You…”

 

    “Yes?”

 

    “You kiss.”

 

    “You know I do.” He blinks.

 

    “I mean, after. You kissed me.”

 

    “Hasn’t anyone before?”

 

    George shakes his head, and Paul isn’t sure if he wants to have words with all of George’s ex lovers, or if he’s glad none of them were so considerate or so serious or so all in with him, so filled with butterflies and sweetness and light at the sight of him.

 

    “Well, I’ll kiss you any time. I mean, when it’s safe, but-- After, too. I mean… wouldn’t you?”

 

    “Yeah.” George laughs softly, and kisses Paul again.

 

    Paul feels incredibly bold. Something about all of it, he can hardly help himself. Another couple of passionate kisses, his hands all over George, and then he gets him laid out on the cot rather than sitting on the edge, so that he can explore his way down, kissing his way across George’s chest, feeling the sigh when he reaches a nipple, and he remembers how it had felt when George had touched his-- a part of his anatomy he’d always considered to be pretty pointless before, though now, now… now there’s not a single part of him he thinks is pointless, if only George will touch him. He kisses the spot again, again, feels it stiffen into a peak beneath his lips. George has one hand in Paul’s hair, the other fisted tight and pressed to his mouth.

 

    “Your tongue…” He urges, un-muffling himself briefly. “Use your tongue…”

 

    Paul does, and it doesn’t seem to matter that he doesn’t know what he’s doing-- either he’s hit on the right thing, or there’s no wrong thing, but he can feel the way George now struggles to keep silent. There’s something intoxicating in being the reason he has to struggle, the reason for each little grunt and sigh and strangled moan. His hand slips down, and finds George so much harder than he’d even expected, dripping precome onto the flat of his belly, hot in his hand…

 

    “I don’t know if I can…” He says, kissing his way lower again. “You feel so _big_ …”

 

    He’s aware it’s a bit of a come-on, he’s not completely naive. He’s heard guys talk about lines like that they’ve gotten from girls… he’s heard guys tell a lot of stories about girls they’ve been with, always found himself trying to imagine being that girl, saying and doing the sorts of things they did in dirty stories to please a guy, where anatomically possible. There weren’t the same sneering, ugly-sounding words, when they talked about a girl doing it, when guys talked about girls doing things, even the same things, they usually made it sound pretty nice. A girl wasn’t a _cock-sucker_ , even if she had, by all accounts, sucked a cock, and they definitely didn’t use the same kinds of words if a girl let a guy do that other thing to her.

 

    “Just do whatever you want to me.” George groans, swallowing hard and biting down on his fist as Paul tentatively licks at the head of his cock. “Oh, you can do anything to me…”

 

    “I’m sure gonna try.” He grins, and licks him again. It’s… weird, a little, different from come, something to get used to, but he doesn’t think he dislikes it. He thinks he likes what he’s doing a lot, actually, the feel of George in his hand and under his tongue, the heat of him, how he reacts, knowing he’s pleasing him…

 

    The way George holds onto his hair, gentle, how nice it feels… how soft it feels to have this moment away from the war. To get to lay him out like this and kiss him all over, instead of… well, instead of hurrying through getting off, up against the Spam.

 

    “Wanna take you away from here…” He sighs, between enthusiastically sloppy licks and kisses. “Wanna go somewhere we can just do this… whenever we want, in a bed, a real bed… wanna take the time to learn this...”

 

    “Someday.” George guides Paul up a little, meeting his eyes. “Tokyo?”

 

    “Haven’t even been.”

 

    “We’ll take each other there, then.” His fingertips play over Paul’s face, dancing over his cheek, over his wet, swollen lips, down to caress his jaw… his thumb brushes gentle over the mole on Paul’s chin, his eyes crinkle up with warmth. “I’d show you some sights if you could bear to let me out of bed…”

 

    “I don’t know if I could.” Paul drops another kiss to the head of George’s cock, feels it spasm a little in his hand. “Wish I didn’t have to let you out of bed today.”

 

    George laughs, delight and pleasure-- both the pleasure of being sweet-talked and the pleasure of being touched so intimately.

 

    “You’re going to be trouble for me, aren’t you, big boy?” He grins, before letting his head drop back to Paul’s pillow.

 

    “I won’t be trouble.” Paul kisses him again. “Promise.” And again. “I won’t.” And again.

 

    George groans, barely manages to stifle himself again before he can get loud, and Paul gets back to it, trying to get as much as he can _into_ his mouth, to replicate what George had done for him. It doesn’t feel natural, yet, but it _could_. He could get to be natural at it. He could like to. He likes how it feels when he starts to find a rhythm at it. The fullness of the cock in his mouth, the wet mess of the act, the sense of connection, the way what he can’t take feels in his hand. He’s felt close to people, but not like this, and he doesn’t really know if that’s just how sex feels, or if it really is that they’re special, that George is special… but then, he’d been pretty sure George was special before this. He’d been sure of it, lying there under the clouds while the guys all organized some game together and the two of them just… were.

 

    George tugs at his hair after a while, and Paul lets himself be guided up, his hand still moving, just in time for George to come on his face. It’s fascinating to watch, it is, although he very nearly takes a direct hit to the eye.

 

    Really, he’s a little surprised he didn’t, it seems like the kind of thing that would happen to him his first time sucking a guy off.

 

    “Shit…” George just barely whispers, and he touches Paul’s face, shaky and gentle and with warmth and _wonder_. “Paul… you…”

 

    “There’s a hanky if you just reach back.” He points to the frame of the cot, where he has one hanging up. “Use it for this sort of mess.”

 

    Rinses it out when it gets to need it, hangs it over the bedframe to dry, and it’s right at hand when he needs it, which he guesses they do now, and he’s glad he’d washed it as recently as he had. He’s going to need to give himself the time to hit the showers before he’s needed in the kitchen, but he doesn’t think they need to rush just yet.

 

    George cleans his face, and grins when Paul reaches past him to find a pack of gum, to offer a piece.

 

    They dress, but George lets Paul pull him back down to lie on his cot with him a little while longer. There’s not much room, except to hold him tight, spooned behind him, and they allow themselves a moment. A moment where he can breathe in the scent of George’s hair-- even if mostly it just smells like the same soap Paul uses, the same soap they all use. He can smell the army soap, the sweat and musk of sex, bubble gum. Which he figures… it isn’t a mint, but it ought to cover anything on their breath, or at least he hopes, he has no experience, but it seems they ought to do something. Of course, he’s never going to be able to think about bubble gum the same way after this, but…

 

    “I gotta hit the showers.” He says, tucking his gum against the inside of his cheek before carefully kissing the back of George’s head. “And then I gotta make dinner. Load of fresh cabbage was supposed to come in this afternoon and if it did then I guess I know what I’m doing, and if it didn’t then I guess I can make hash with the Spam and potatoes, and canned spinach…”

 

    “Mm. You’re the only guy I know who I think could make canned spinach appetizing.” He reaches back, ruffling Paul’s hair. “Save me something good and I’ll be in the back of the line so I can sit with you once the rest of the guys get fed.”

 

    “Sure.” He kisses the back of his head again before letting him up, moving to sit and watching as George stretches a little and straightens himself up. “George? Thanks. For-- for staying after, and for… Just for how nice it was.”

 

    George comes back to the cot, to stand between Paul’s knees, leaning over him for one last embrace. “Thank you. For having me. And just for how nice it was. After you’re free tonight, maybe I could take you for a walk?”

 

    “I’d like that.” He nods, getting to his feet and making sure he’s presentable as well, once George has left his arms. “I’d like it a lot. I like you a lot.”

 

    “I like you a lot.” George nods as well, nearly doubles back, half reaching for him, before he can make himself go.

 

    Five little words, but five little words that don’t leave Paul’s head a moment as he showers, as he throws together dinner with a little well-supervised help, and they do have the cabbage, shredded and stirred into mashed potatoes with little bits of Spam… all in all, a pretty easy thing for the other guys on duty with him in the kitchen to follow along on, there’s not a lot to mess up.

 

    George slides in at the very end of the line, smiling up at him as he fills his tray.

 

    “Save you a seat?”

 

    “Thanks.” He grins. It feels like too much, it feels like anyone must see him and _know_ , but nobody blinks at it. Nobody thinks it’s odd they’d eat together-- well, haven’t they tried to eat together whenever they could since the first time they really talked? And even before that, hadn’t Paul always tried to put himself in George’s orbit?

 

    As far as anyone else would think, he’s just one of the first real friends George made when he joined the unit, one of the people he got close to when he was new. And why wouldn’t they think that, when Paul’s always been friendly? Whenever they’ve gotten new guys, he’s always been as welcoming as anyone could be, even if he hasn’t always wound up bonding the most to any given person. But there’s nothing suspicious in his being friendly, and so there’s nothing funny about George taking him up on any offer of friendship.

 

    And there’s nothing funny about a couple of guys who are friends wandering off together to talk, either, though he feels incredibly self-conscious as they slip away. With a certain distance between the two of them and camp, George’s hand steals into Paul’s, and his heart hammers at his ribcage, but he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t want to pull away… not ever. And they will, to be safe, when they start heading back or if they hear something, someone. But he doesn’t want to be afraid to have this much. Not when George is so brave about it, and so…

 

    Swell. He’s real swell. He laughs at Paul’s jokes, and it’s the _way_ that he laughs, because sometimes the guys laugh, just like he laughs sometimes at any of them, if something’s funny, but their eyes don’t sparkle and they don’t go all soft around the edges when they do, and catch his gaze and smile the way he does, and look away half shy. And he praises his cooking, and okay, and all the guys do that, too, but none of them ever made the _noise_ George made last Monday over the creamed peas, and after today, there are things Paul will never see-- or hear-- quite the same way again.

 

    “The sunset’s nice, tonight.” George ventures.

 

    “Yeah. Never, um… never been out to watch it with someone.”

 

    “Neither have I.” George’s hand squeezes his. “I used to think… I thought the first guy I was ever with, that we’d do things like this. We’d have to hide and pretend, but I thought… back home, before the war, I figured we’d sneak around and see some sunsets some of the time. It wasn’t really like that… Like I said, a lot of guys… a lot of college boys especially, I think, they don’t really care about going steady, as much as… And I started to think that if you liked other guys, maybe you just… weren’t supposed to want sunsets. And then the war started, and I tried to quit looking, mostly. Made the mistake once of saying too much, and…”

 

    He stops walking, turning to face Paul, to bring a hand up to his cheek, where the trees shelter them a little from the view of the camp.

 

    “I guess what I want to say is… when I first thought maybe you were like me, I wanted to ask… or to offer… I wanted to, right away. But I-- I’ve been hurt, and it’s such a big risk here to go with a guy… and I thought about going after you, that day you called me handsome. And I thought, after everything, I’d better not. But then we got along, and… I wondered if it could be different, with us. If we could do things. Sunsets and things. And-- and that if we could have all that, it might be worth the risk. And then you busted your leg and I was holding you and I thought… I thought I should have told you sooner and we might have had something, and if you got transferred anywhere else, I’d… I’d never get to know what we could’ve had, or if you wanted to be steady, or… any of it.”

 

    “I wanna go steady.” He nods, and when George breaks out into a relieved grin, so does he. “And I like sunsets, too.”

 

    George stoops, plucking a flower from where they grow thick around the bases of the trees here, smallish white things with red centers, and everything around the front is so blasted, Paul doesn’t think he’s seen flowers in ages, but here they are, and not even that far from camp. And George tucks it into a buttonhole on his jacket, and Paul doesn’t think even with the trees and the distance that it would be safe to kiss him the way he wants to kiss him, but no one’s ever given him flowers before. Or, one flower.

 

    “There.” George whispers.

 

    “Thanks.” Paul whispers back. And he doesn’t dare kiss George the way he deserves, but he cups his cheek, and he looks into his eyes, and he thinks maybe George understands what he wishes.

 

    George’s eyes are warm and dark, beautiful in the fading light, and Paul’s other hand comes up to his side, to rest over where he knows one scar is, and George sighs at his touch and leans in closer, and all caution goes to the wind, Paul kisses him.

 

    Not as deeply or as long as he really wants, but he was going to resist kissing him at all, and then he just couldn’t… once George reached for him, too, boy…

 

    “We oughta head back.” He says reluctantly, and his hand slips up from George’s cheek to run through his hair, once. “Before it gets too dark.”

 

    He is, he knows, likely to spoil the whole walk if they don’t. He’ll find a rock or a mole hole or something that he’d missed on the way out and twist his ankle going back. But it would be too much to ask for a quiet night with a full moon where they could do this and stay out longer…

 

    Someday they’ll get R&R together, and have a proper date, and sleep side by side all night. Someday maybe… someday maybe they’ll have more than that. For now, they have this. And Paul has a flower, small enough that when they get nearer to camp, he can palm it to keep it hidden, and press it inside his bible, the only book he’s got that’s any good for pressing a flower in-- and he wants to be able to keep it forever, safe where it is for now, until he can put it in a photo album back home someday.

  
    There’s so much to want for someday. And someday, he’s going to _get_ it.


	4. Hello, Young Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George is the one on the front lines, Paul's the one who winds up back at the 4077...

    Paul’s accident rate is a lot lower now that he’s cooking-- and now that George is catching him more often than not, before he can hurt himself on jogs or during calisthenics. And George… Paul worries for him, being on the front and being so brave and so selfless, but he’s not _reckless_ \-- at least, he’s not now he has someone to come back in one piece to, maybe. And he’s tough, Paul knows that. He can’t help worrying, but he knows that. He can’t bear to think about anything serious happening to him, he feels sick whenever there’s a long battle and he finds himself waiting back at camp not knowing… bad enough to worry George might be hurt badly enough to wind up in Tokyo and then transferred to who knows where, and they would have to write letters the censors wouldn’t look askance at. Waiting and worrying and knowing even less, and if something serious did happen to George, who would ever tell him?

 

    In the end, it’s not George who has to make the next trip out to the closest MASH unit. This time, it isn’t even Paul’s fault-- one minute George has him backed up against the cans of Spam and he’s just said ‘I love you’ for the second time ever, and everything is rosy, everything is real nice, as good as it can be when all they’ve got is ten minutes in with the kitchen supply. George’s hand is up under his shirt in the back and he’s got one hand in George’s hair and the other squeezing his backside, which is a little new but highly gratifying, and they’ll probably spend the whole ten minutes just working each other up and then they’ll have to take care of themselves separately later, but there’s only so much you can do a few feet from the potatoes and all, and he doesn’t mind just getting worked up. He likes getting worked up a whole hell of a lot.

 

    It’s just that they’re only six minutes in or so when the bombs start dropping, and Paul does the only thing he can do, he gets George down on the ground and does his best to cover him, and the next thing he knows he’s strapped to a stretcher that’s strapped to a jeep, banging along a rough dirt road, and everything hurts. The next thing he knows, he’s waking up again at the 4077.

 

    “Private Conway! I never forget a repeat customer.” Dr. Pierce greets him.

 

    He’s face-down, and his neck’s a little sore what with having to be turned to the side so he’s not literally face down into his pillow, but it’s not as sore as all the rest of him.

 

    “It’s not my fault this time, Sir, they dropped a bomb on me.” He says, half apologetic.

 

    “And I say I never forget a repeat customer…” Pierce dangles a set of dogtags in front of Paul’s eyes. He squints at them, but he couldn’t make anything out, between the distance and the movement and the glare. And the fact that his head is just one of the many parts of him that seem to be rebelling. “Because these belong to a different customer.”

 

    “A different customer from who?”

 

    “From _you_.”

 

    Oh.

 

    _Oh_.

 

    Of course they had checked. He was in and out of consciousness after all the shelving and the whole tent besides came down on him, he wasn’t awake to say who he was, and if there were a lot of guys coming in, it’d be faster to check than to stop the driver who’d brought him and ask a bunch of questions, and he wouldn’t have answers to some stuff, like that Paul was Catholic or that his blood type was B, and George’s is O, and George is a Methodist, so there’s a P stamped there instead of a C, although the blood type is probably a whole lot more important, and he hadn’t thought about that before, but he’s not getting blood so the only real problem is George needs his own tags back before the next time he sees combat, just in case he needs blood after, he needs… They have to know, if he needs…

 

    “That-- that sometimes happens by accident, doesn’t it?” He asks, pushing himself up on his elbows.

 

    He promptly throws up into a waiting bedpan. Which is convenient.

 

    “And that’ll be the concussion.” Pierce says, and he moves it away before the smell can make Paul sick to his stomach all over again. He drops George’s tags into Paul’s hand, where it lies curled beside his pillow. “Here. You can get these back where they belong in a couple of days. You’re pretty banged up, but nothing that’ll keep you away from your unit. You were lucky, if you hadn’t had that tray to take cover under, you might have worse than just a concussion. That and the _mural_ of bruises.”

 

    The rest of him feels like it’s just one solid bruise, but he guesses that is lucky… There were trays, the big deep ones used for carting supplies between the supply tent and the kitchen, but he hadn’t grabbed one. George must have. A good sized tin of something hefty from on high could have dented it and left him with the goose egg on the back of his head and the nausea and swimmy feeling whenever he tries to focus on anything too much… but it could have been a lot worse, and the back of his neck could have been hit hard and that would’ve been… no, he doesn’t want to think about that.

 

    “So-- so there’s no one here wearing my tags?” He asks.

 

    “No, the real Private Weston must be in good shape.”

 

    He lets out a relieved sigh, squeezing the tags tight. “Okay. Okay, good, okay. I’ll get these back to him, Sir, I promise. It must’ve happened in the showers or something.”

 

    It’s not a very good lie. Paul doesn’t know anybody who takes his dogtags off in the shower. It’d be a mess if everyone did and had to sort them out after, and anyway, if you were going to, you’d probably check before putting them back on, but he doesn’t know what else to say.

 

    “Stranger mix-ups have happened.” Pierce says, takes his own off and holds them down for Paul to read. One is about as expected, he guesses. Pierce, Benjamin F, US. a number, a blood type, no religious preference. The other reads McIntyre, John F, US, etc, etc, C. Paul looks up at him, watches as he drops the chain back around his neck and tucks the tags back inside his shirt.

 

    “What would you say if someone saw?” He asks, his voice soft.

 

    “On the off chance I’m alive to say much… I don’t know. And if I’m not, let the army sort it out, they’re the ones who wanted us. I don’t know. He’s already home… the matched set’s rattling around a sock drawer somewhere in Boston. You say hi to the real Private Weston, by the way. I’m glad he’s staying out of trouble nowadays.”

 

    “Yes, Sir, I will, Sir.”

 

    “You know, you don’t have to call me ‘sir’... nobody else does, if I can help it.”

 

    “Oh. All right, then, Sir, sorry.”

 

    Pierce laughs. “I’ll be back to check on you in a little while. For now, just… try and think happy thoughts between rounds of painkillers.”

 

    “I will, Sir-- uh, Doctor Pierce.”

 

    He pats Paul’s shoulder very gently, managing to avoid the can-shaped bruises, and then he moves on to check on the next guy-- not conscious, it looks like along the line none of the other guys are, and he feels a sick, cold, sinking feeling in his gut when he wonders how bad the camp was hit and who was hurt. The occupant of the next bed, he can’t see, his face his heavily bandaged…

 

    Which of his friends were hurt, and how badly? Did anyone die? Were the guys back at camp putting things right okay, how many hands were they down? Was George worried, or was he satisfied that Paul would be in good hands? Even so, he might be. Was he thinking about the dogtag problem?

 

    He runs his thumb over George’s, over his name, his number. The little RA where Paul’s read US, the little O where his read B, the little P where his read C.

 

    What would they do with them, after the war? Not throw them in a sock drawer, he doesn’t think. Sitting in a tray on the nightstand like his mom keeps her jewelry at night? Hanging on pegs by the door with the keys? Too bulky for the photo album, though he’s started one. Asked in a letter for his folks to send him one with some empty pages left, so he’d have a safe place for the letters and photographs they sent. He’d got it just the other day, a couple copies of family photos, and some they’d gathered from his friends back home, and one of everyone gathered together and holding up a sign saying ‘HI PAUL’, and he’d put in the pictures he already had, and old letters from home, and the pressed flower that George had given him, and the one picture he has of the two of them, the one Petey took of the two of them horsing around, he’d had George on his back, just to see how far he could carry him and knowing he’d probably trip over things long before he got tired, but it was just nice, it was just fun, and so they’d stopped when Petey waved them over, and he’d got a picture of them like that and laughing…

 

    The picture of them and the flower he keeps on a page facing one of his family. He looks at them both every night.

 

    He thinks about a little house, nothing fancy, but a place that’s theirs. As much time as they’ve spent together, it doesn’t sound so crazy anymore to imagine they might be heading there, when the war’s over. A nice little place where it’s quiet. Where there’s enough of a yard to put a grill and maybe have people over-- would they settle where he grew up, where George did? Or someplace neither of them knows? They’ll make new friends together. Probably get a place with a spare bedroom, it doesn’t look so funny if two guys want a place with two bedrooms, a little starter they can tell the realtor is just for until they have separate families and need separate places and one of them buys the other out.

 

    A modern little single-story home, with a sunny kitchen… a double bed. A guest room, and when his parents visited, he’d say ‘you’ll stay in my room and I’ll bunk in with George’, and when George’s parents visited, they’d say the opposite. A nice, quiet life after the war. A job cooking, and George to come home to, and every once in a while they’d go out to a movie together…

 

    He holds the dogtags tight and imagines George’s hand stealing into his own, in the dark. Staring at the screen and listening for his laugh… there’s no risking it when they get movies, not here. They can’t hold hands, but if they make sure they’re sat together, they might at least be able to press close in the crush of people, and if it’s nothing deliberate looking, they still get to enjoy it.

 

    It’s a warmth he suddenly and keenly misses, as he realizes how well he’s learned the feel of it, of George’s thigh against his when they sit on a crowded bench… the way he feels, the way it’s different from being squashed in next to any other guy, because it is George, and they’re _aware_ of each other, they’re aware of _each other_.

 

    There are guys who sling thoughtless arms around each other or who get up to horseplay around the showers, and George is always afraid to try and disguise too much honesty in that kind of friendly, careless touch, and Paul doesn’t blame him. They try to avoid being in the showers at the same time, anyway. It’s easy showering with guys you don’t care about looking at-- well, it was hard when he was a teenager in gym classes, in more ways than one, but now it’s easy. He’s gotten used to showering and changing around other guys since, got real used to it ever since basic, and since he’s been lucky not really feeling that way about the guys in his own unit, up until George, it’s just… fine.

 

    Only if he was with George, he’d have a hard time not looking, and so if it was them and anybody else, it would be pretty bad. He’d want to look at him, and it’d be so hard not to, because he already knows what he looks like, and then he’d be thinking about how he knows what he feels like and what he sounds like, and…

 

    And other guys can mess around or other guys can ask someone else to scratch something hard to reach or slap you on the back without thinking about the fact you’re wet and naked, and Paul’s had a lot of fantasies that take place in showers that he never thinks about when he’s actually showering with a bunch of real guys that he knows, but now with George…

 

    There are ways they just don’t get to touch, he guesses. But the ways that they do… He thinks about George’s hands gentle around his ankle once when he’d twisted it a little in a hole walking back from their spot. It wasn’t so bad he couldn’t walk it off, he’d walked it off by the time they got back to camp, but first George had knelt down and he’d braced a hand on George’s shoulder and let him get his boot unlaced and half off just to check the damage, and they’d been too close to camp and too out in the open for George to kiss anything, only he’d looked up and just mouthed the word, as his thumb circled over the knobby joint, and looked up into his eyes as he’d laced his boot back up. And it had been so sweet, and so warm, and so beyond any words he could ever string together, and none of his buddies who talk about their girls back home could ever understand the way it bowled him over, to have those hands cupped around his ankle and barely even touching him at first.

 

    And he could walk with an arm around him if he was limping a little, but not every time, because he normally didn’t need any help at all. He’s spent his whole life picking himself up, shaking himself off, and starting all over again.

 

    Once, he’d bruised himself, during calisthenics he thinks, but it could have been any of the time he wasn’t in the kitchen… He only remembers George finding it later, when he’d ducked into his tent with him and they didn’t have more than a minute. But it only took a minute, George’s hand resting at the small of his back already a religious experience, before he even added in the touch of his lips. How he’d sighed against his arm, lips just barely wet and pressed there to the little mottled purple-green spot just there at the border of the sleeve of his tee shirt when he’d stripped half out of his fatigues. And his heart had pounded so hard, and it was all he could do not to grab him and really kiss him. And later, in the supply tent, George had left a bruise of his own and still kissed it gently after. But there in his own tent, he’d only whispered ‘I know’ and then he’d had to leave again.

 

    “How do you do it?” He asks, when Dr. Pierce comes back to look in on him.

 

    “Years of medical school. A lot of schooling went into me being here today to give you this baby aspirin. Now take two tablets and call me in the morning.”

 

    “I mean-- um, are we alone?”

 

    Pierce scans the room for what seems like a long moment before nodding at last. “You mean the…”

 

    He taps his chest, where the dogtags rest under his scrubs.

 

    “Every other guy who’s got somebody, he gets to talk about it. I just… I listen to all my friends say ‘my wife makes the best coconut cake you ever saw’ and ‘my girl has the prettiest eyes’, or-- or else she’s got a voice like an angel, or she’s got the softest hands, or she always wrote little love notes in her husband’s lunchbox, or she likes swing dancing or she keeps the best garden on the block or just a hundred things… just a hundred things. And I got nobody I can say even one thing to. Except George and that’s not really the same ‘cause I already tell him how much I like him anyway. But I don’t have any friends I can tell…”

 

    “I’ve got a couple, but… only a couple.” Pierce nods. “My best friend. Trapper’s wife.”

 

    “His _wife_?” Paul hisses, eyes wide.

 

    “Well… birds of a feather.” He shrugs. “She understands us, we understand her. We each have someone we can lean on when we miss each other too much…”

 

    “I can’t even imagine telling my best friend. Not my best friend here or my best friend back home… and-- After what happened, with-- with George, I just…”

 

    “Yeah. I saw him, just after that little run-in.”

 

    “It was so bad they brought him _here_?” Paul’s heart clenches. He never probed past what George told him about it, and he knew he’d been to this MASH unit, been to a couple, with all the times he’d been wounded, but the idea that his own unit had…

 

    “No, no. Unrelated, but he still had the bruises. He’s a tough kid.”

 

    “Yeah. He really is.” Paul sighs, and Pierce smiles at him, warm.

 

    “You can talk to me. You’re the only one here who’s awake, might not get this opportunity very often.”

 

    “He is tough, and he’s so brave and he’s so nice.” The words rush out of him and he can’t understand how he could have held them in so long once he knows how it feels to say them. “And he’s so handsome, and he’s even handsomer dressed up, and I keep wishing there were more excuses to just so I could see him. And he cares about people a lot, and he cares about me… and he-- and we went on a walk up the hill from camp and-- well, and we go on walks a lot, when we both can. Just to be able to talk, or, or if we can watch a little of the sunset, but we have this spot I guess, where we usually walk to, and… and there’s flowers growing there, and the first time we went up, he picked one for me, and no one’s ever done that for me before… and he lets everyone go ahead of him every meal so he can sit with me… And he’s got a laugh, gosh! Well, I mean, you just… you just wanna do whatever you can to hear it again! Does your guy have a laugh like that?”

 

    “Oh… you wouldn’t believe.” He sighs. “I’d spend all my time making him laugh. And the cutest little overbite-- I’ve got a weakness for an overbite. Curly hair you could lose your fingers in. Wicked sense of humor of his own… One of those guys, he could hold you and you’d feel a little safer, even with the war.”

 

    “That’s what it’s like with George.” Paul smiles. “He holds me and everything’s just okay, and… and I hold him and I hope he’s okay, too, I guess, but… but I feel real safe, when he’s got me. And I feel good getting to take care of him. And sometimes, he… he does the littlest things for me and it’s-- it means the world. You know? It just means the whole world.”

 

    “I know.” Pierce nods, takes his own tags out to hold onto McIntyre’s. “When he’d put his mind to something, he’d get it, and one of the things he’d put his mind to was just… finding ways to make me happy, when we had so little to be happy about. Trying to make sure I ate or I slept… trying to make sure I smiled.”

 

    “I just love him.” He worries at his lip a little. “I just love him. I never got to just say it like that before. And I love that he’s a man, and… I don’t care if I shouldn’t, I guess.”

 

    “Shouldn’t… what’s ‘shouldn’t’?” He slips his tags back under his shirt once more. “There’s no ‘shouldn’t’ about it, he’s a good kid and you love him. Don’t you think he deserves to be loved? Why shouldn’t you be the one to do it?”

 

    “You think?” Paul’s smile is tentative.

 

    “I know.” Pierce’s is gentle. And very, very reassuring. “There’s nothing wrong with _you_ that painkillers and bedrest won’t fix. I’m just sorry we haven’t got enough of either to go around.”

 

    “That’s okay, then. I don’t mind going home with a few bruises, everyone’s used to that. I don’t think they’d know what to do with me if I showed up without any.”

 

    Pierce laughs, getting to his feet. “Well, get that bedrest while you can, you’ll be giving your beau my fond regards in no time. Actually… I’d like you to thank him for me.” He taps the concealed dogtags again. “If he hadn’t showed up here needing our help out of a jam, Trap and I… things might have been different. Or they’d have taken longer. So let him know, if he thinks he owes me one, it’s paid and then some.”

 

    “I will.” Paul grins, and closes his eyes, and thinks about getting back to him.


End file.
